I can't stop these thoughts, Gary realized. They are like parasites eating into my brain.
At first, Gary was simply turned on by his wife's extramarital sex with Crue. Passion grew once again between the married couple, more intense than ever. Gary loved the sexy, borderline slutty side of his wife. There was a purity there that had been missing for so long. We are sexual things, he thought. Sometimes, we need a good solid fuck. It's hardwired into us. It's natural.
Slowly, darker thoughts crept in. Samantha is my wife and she is sleeping with other men...am I not the best man for her? Who the fuck is this guy? Does Samantha fantasize about him every night instead of me?
The good, erotic thoughts were being pushed aside. Jealousy had wormed it's way in.
Then there were the three orgasms. Three. Samantha had never had three orgasms with Gary. Never. What was Samantha like after three orgasms in a row? Did she scream? Did she sweat? Was she exhausted? Was she satisfied in a way that she had never been satisfied before? There was only one man in the world who knew the answer to that, and it wasn't Gary.
Wow. I saw this coming, but I didn't see this coming.
At work, he couldn't concentrate for too long on anything. He sat at his desk, staring down for long periods of time in a hypnotic trance. Other employees began to notice. Some asked if he was feeling sick. He was falling behind. Folders stacked on his desk began to gather dust. If he couldn't get his act together, the senior managers might come down hard on him.
Fuck.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fuck, Samantha thought.
Samantha walked through the shopping mall in something of a daze. Nothing felt real anymore. Her relationship with her husband had improved since the one-night stand with Crue. Improved. Gary was more attentive and stronger. More sensitive. A better lover. A better friend. They no longer discussed divorce or communication issues or disappointment or boredom.
Samantha wandered into a lingerie store and began poking around a section dedicated to frilly baby doll outfits. She found one in dark purple and pulled it from the rack. The material felt silky and she guessed it would feel great on her. She held it to her body and smiled, wondering if she might buy this for her husband or perhaps some new, presently unknown lover who would enter her life soon.
This is crazy, she almost said aloud.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As the days elapsed since the date with Crue, calm descended. The concept of an open sexual free-for-all had dissipated as further sexual adventures eluded them. Gary was able to focus on his work at long last and cleared a stockpile of backlogged work from his desk. At home (he still was living with his friend Kent for now, a situation that was appearing more temporary as time went by), he began reading a novel. Lonesome Dove. The book had been recommended to him by many people, and now he found the time. Somewhere along the way, the frustration of his divorce and the stress of dealing with his open marriage had pulled him away from every hobby he had ever had. His interest in life was returning once more.
Samantha and Gary had chosen not to have a second sexual adventure with Crue, though he was available and both agreed that he might very well be an acceptable partner down the road. Yet, both would soon discover why Crue had come recommended to them. Their ad (placed on a prominent internet web site), announcing them to the world as married and looking for respectable people to play with, both individually and as a couple, had generated a fair amount of replies. Many of these replies were of no value and were immediately rejected.
"Oh my God," Samantha laughed, covering her mouth. "Come here. Look at this."
Samantha had opened a reply from a local man who attached a picture of his cock - a large, somewhat limpy erection that had been photographed poorly and appeared a pale yellow color.
"I think he has jaundice," laughed Samantha.
The sender had snapped his own picture in front of a mirror in his bedroom. The room behind looked disorganized. Samantha thought she could see a smashed can of beer on the dresser behind him.
"I do...NOT...want to see a picture of your cock, thank you," Samantha sputtered as she deleted the email. "Gross."
"Not a turn on, huh?" Gary asked.
"Uh, are you kidding? Yuck."
"Anything worth responding to?"
"Nothing."
"I didn't think it would so be hard to find people."
"Maybe that's because, my love, we are pickier than everyone else."
Gary thought that might be true. After all, he could wander in to any bar on a Saturday night and pick up a woman to spend the night with, but that idea held no appeal to him. Since when had meaningless sex meant so little to him? Did the quality of the person outweigh the need for sex? Apparently so.
"Yeah, we need people we can trust."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Then one day, the floodgates opened.
She read an ad on the same website from a man in his late 30's who wanted a "friends with benefits" situation. He was a local doctor, recently divorced and looking for someone to have "fun" with from time to time. His unusual writing style and goofy sense of humor caught her attention:
'Aside from an unhealthy fixation on model trains and baseball, I am pretty much your average guy. Well, also I enjoy farmer's markets. And science fiction. Okay, apart from those things, I am pretty much your run-of-the-mill average guy. Oh, and I like comic books and Guns N' Roses. And Sumo Wrestling. Besides all that...oh, who am I kidding? I'm a total freak. Just delete this ad now. Move on. There is nothing to see here."
The ad continued, describing himself as healthy but also morbidly obese and addicted to crystal meth. The more times Samantha read the ad, the funnier she thought it was. Was this guy serious? Was he looking for someone or was he making fun of the ads themselves? She was curious.
She typed out a one sentence response.
'Maybe a total freak is someone I'd enjoy hanging out with.'
Samantha clicked the enter button and laughed.